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wicke immediately wrote to the duke of Newcastle, then at Hanover with the king, recommending the bishop of Oxford to the vacant deanry of St. Paul's. His majesty confented, and he was inftalled in December 1750. On this preferment, he refigned his prebend of Durham; and the rectory of St. James's, and when he preached his farewel fermon the whole audience melted into tears.

Having now more leifure both to profecute his own ftudies, and to encourage thofe of others, he gave Dr. Church confiderable affiftance in his Vindication of the Miraculous Powers, &c. against Dr. Middleton; and also in his Analyfis of lord Bolingbroke's Works.

He alfo corrected and improved his friend Dr. Thomas Sharp's Controverfial Tracts, againft the Hutchinfonians, on the meaning of the words Elohim and Berith, the expofition of the word Cherubim, and the antiquity of the Hebrew language.

But the eafe which this change of fituation gave him, was foon difturbed by a very heavy and unexpected ftroke, the lofs of his three excellent friends, bifhops Butler, Berkeley, and Benson, who were all cut off in the space of one year.

In the beginning of the year 1753, a bill for the naturalization of the Jews had paffed both houfes of parliament with little or no oppofition. But a great clamour being raifed against it, among the people, it was deemed advifeable that the duke of Newcastle thould move for the repeal of it, on the first day of the feffion, in the following winter. And his grace defiring to be feconded by a bishop, Dr. Secker was pitched upon for that purpose. He accordingly arofe after the duke, and made a fpeech which was remarkably well received; though lord Weftmoreland faid, that for fome time he thought the bifhop had been speaking against the repeal, having advanced more in favour of the bill, than he had ever heard before. The bifhop fpoke afterwards for a claufe to disable Jews from being patrons of livings, but the defire of the house for a fimple repeal prevailed, and he was advised not to divide it on the claufe. On this occafion it was that he vindicated his friend bishop Sherlock with great spirit against some fevere attacks made upon him by a noble lord, in relation to this bill, for which generous proceeding he had the bishop's thanks.

During the time that he was dean of St. Paul's, he attended divine fervice conftantly in the cathedral, twice every day, when in London; and together with the three other refidentiaries, eftablished the cultom of always preaching their

own

own turns in the afternoon, or of exchanging with each other only. The fund appropriated to the repairs of the church, having by neglect and wrong management fallen into much confufion, he took great pains in examining the ac. counts, reducing payments, making a proper divifion of expenfe betwixt the dean and chapter on one fide, and the three truffees on the other; by which means the fund increafed confiderably. In the following year he was engaged in another very troublefome tranfaction, making an agree ,ment with the inhabitants of St. Faith's parith, concerning their fare of St. Paul's church yard. And he left behind him a number of papers relative to both thefe points. He procured the old writings of the church to be put in order, and an index made to them. He collated a copy of the old ftatute book, with that which is used as the original, and corrected a multitude of errors in that tranfcript. He examined also the registers and books in the chapter-houfe, extracted out of them what was moft material, and left the extracts for the use of his fucceffors.

In the fummer months he refided conftantly at his episco. pal houfe at Cuddefden, which was the refort of many members of the univerfity, who always left him with a high 'efleem of his affability and learning.

Party fpirit ran very high at this time; yet by preserving always an even temper and goodwill to men of oppofite opinions, the bifhop of Oxford obtained the efteem even of thofe who moft difliked his political opinions.

The fame prudent conduct in this refpect which he obferved himself, he recommended to his-clergy in his charges, the whole feries of which may be juftly pronounced a moft excellent fyftem of paftoral duty.

What he recommended in words he taught by example. He enjoined no duty, he impofed no burthen on thofe under his jurifdiction, which he had not formerly undergone, or was not ftill ready, as far as he could, to undergo. He preached conftantly in the church at Cuddefden every Sunday morning, and read a lecture on the catechism in the evening; (both which he continued to do in Lambeth chapel after he became archbishop;) and in every other refpect, within his own proper department, was himself that devout, difcreet, difinterefted, laborious, confcientious paftor, which he wifhed and exhorted every clergyman in his diocese to be. The bishop of Oxford continued in that diocese upwards of twenty years; going on that whole time in the fame even courfe of duty, and enjoying those leisure hours which his re

tirement

tirement at Cuddefden fometimes afforded him, for the profecution of his favourite ftudies. Such diftinguished merit could not fail to make an impreffion upon thofe in the higheft ftation; accordingly within a few days after the death of archbishop Hutton, he received a meffage from the duke of Newcastle, acquainting him that his grace had propofed him to the king for the vacant fee of Canterbury. He returned the duke a short noe of thanks, expreffing at the fame time his wifh that his majefty would fix upon a more proper perfon. Soon after this his grace defired an interview with the bishop, at which he informed him that the king had appointed him archbishop.

This promotion accordingly took place, and he was confirmed at Bow-Church, April 21, 1758.

In accepting this high and burthenfome ftation, Dr. Secker acted on that principle which influenced him through life; he facrificed his own ease and comfort to confiderations of public utility. Apart from this, the mere fecular advantages of grandeur were objects far beneath his ambition; and were, as he knew and confeffed, but poor compensations for the anxiety and difficulties that accompanied them.

He had never once through his whole life afked preferment for himself, nor fhewn any unbecoming eagerness for it; and the ufe he made of his newly-acquired dignity, clearly proved that rank, and power, and wealth had no other charms for him than as they ferved to extend the fphere of his active and induftrious benevolence.

(To be concluded in our next.)

Mifcellanies.

ON THE MISSION OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES. (Continued from page 110.)

A

S the Apoftles that were affembled together on this occafion were at last then fo thoroughly convinced by what had happened to Cornelius and his party, that " God had to the Gentiles alfo granted repentance unto life," of courfe we may well fuppose that their Lord's command must have inftantly occurred to every one of them that were prefent,and, if so, what reafon can be affigned why it should not have prefented itself to them even in the fame extensive acceptation as, we perceive, it did to St. Matthew, (a) if not

while

(a) Lardner supposes that St. Matthew's Gospel discovers so complete an insight into the doctrine of the call of the Gentiles and the abolition of the Levitical law, as the Apostles did not possess till many years after the death of Christ: whence he concludes that it must have been written many years after that event. But I (says Michaelis) cannot suppose that the Apostles after they had received the gifts of the holy Spirit, still retained the Jewish prejudices, and moreover retained them in such a manner, as to be unable at any time to give a true and faithful account of Christ's doctrines since they wrote under the immediate influence of the Deity. It is true that the Apostles did not insist on the abolition of the Levitical law in Palestine; for this doctrine belonged properly to other countries, and God permitted those who had been educated in the Levitical law still to retain it: yet it does not necessarily follow that the Apostles believed it still continued to have the force of a divine obligation. In the presence of the Jews they avoided a doctrine, which was not intended for them, and which could not have failed to have given them offence. Michaelis, Vol. iii. p. 102.

Were it true, that the Apostles were not entirely free from such erroneous notions, which however it would be difficult to reconcile with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, yet St. Matthew, con

sidered

while they were then affembled together, at the latest however, before he wrote his Gofpel, fince, we find, he had by that time acquired a complete view of the mystery of human Redemption? And what reason, it may be further asked, can be affigned, why it fhould not have occurred to them efficaciously; (b) since it is difficult to conceive that they entertained any manner of doubt whatever, after fo unquestionable a notification of the divine will had been made by each perfon in the GODHEAD feverally, of their being duly authorised to affociate with Gentiles wherever they fhould think proper, but especially with fuch as were of a religious difpofition, and fince we have every reason to think that no men could have had a more profound reverence for the divine authority than they had, when duly made known to them? Now if they did immediately fet about performing the work affigned to them, agreeably to this laft re-enforcement of their attention to the divine will, their preceding conduct may not have been, on the whole, altogether fo queftionable as the ftrictures concerning it hitherto elicited seem to enable us to perceive, especially if it be admitted that an error may poffibly have taken place with regard to the date of the affair of Cornelius. But if the effects of their exertions were any way remarkable it cannot furely be at all unreasonable to expect to find fome account of them, either in that part of the New Teftament which treats of the first admiffion of the Gentiles into the Church of Chrift,-or-in that which exhibits the ftate of the Chriftian church after the Gentiles

sidered as a meer human historian, was surely able to give a true and faithful account of the doctrines which he had heard delivered by Christ. If they appeared to him extraordinary, and contrary to his former notions, he might have accompanied them with a comment expressive of his former prejudices; yet these prejudices would not have rendered his memory so weak, as to be unable to retain the doctrines which he had actually heard, nor his hand so untrue, as to be unable to record them. Michaelis, Vol. iii. p. 103. (6) Nec enim fas est dicere, quoniam ante prædicaverunt, quam perfectam haberent agnitionem; sicut quidam audent dicere, gloriantes, emendatores se esse Apostolorum. Postea enim quam surrexit Dominus noster a mortuis, et induti sunt supervenientis Spiritus sancti virtutem ex alto, de omnibus ad impleti sunt, et habuerunt perfectam agnitionem; exierunt in fines terra, eaquæ a Deo nobis bona sunt evangelizantes, et cœlestem pacem hominibus annunciantes, qui quidem et omnes pariter et singuli eorum habentes evangelium Dei. Irenæus, Lib. iii, c. 1. p. 198. Oxford Ed.

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